Chapter 25: Recovering from Wounds

SPYRO woke up confused, with a pounding headache, and numbness in his left arm. Around him, Cynder, Flame, Ember, and two Elder Dragons sat and watched as he finally came to. Spyro was trying to think of why he was here, and what had happened slowly came to his memory; the confrontation with Gnasty Gnork. He won, or at the minimum stopped his plan. Crash. Where was he? The last thing he could remember was being dragged out of Gnasty's castle, but he couldn't remember anything else. Sparks flew off Spyro's horn and landed on the opposite side of the bed and stared at him. His color was green, did that mean Sparx had healed him? That must have been it, for he could see the fatigue in Sparx's small face. He struggled to fly and was conserving energy. All the Dragons still stared at him as he finally pulled the covers off of his body and tried to stand up.

"Spyro!" Ember yelled as she came to embrace her love. "Whoa, take it easy, big guy. Just stay in bed and rest. You defiantly deserve it."

"I knew you were a show off, Spyro, but single handedly defeating Gnasty and freeing all the Dragons in the Dragon Realms. I guess all that prophetic stuff wasn't a bunch of hot air, after all."

Spyro hadn't done it all by himself, though. The two Elder Dragons who were gathered at the back of the room looked at Flame suspiciously regarding his last comment, and then approached Spyro. Cynder still kept her distance.

"Spyro, when you're feeling better, the Elders wish to speak with you." The blue Elder dragon said. They both departed afterwards, and Spyro was left alone with his three friends. Spyro again attempted to get out of his bed, but Ember again told him to rest. Spyro felt weak, but persisted on getting up.

"Where's Crash?" Spyro said concernedly. Ember and Flame looked at him in bewilderment.

"Crash? Spyro, what are you talking about?" Ember responded as she again tucked him in. How could she not know who he was? Both he and Spyro had saved every Dragon's life.

"Flame, Ember, Spyro and I need to talk alone for a moment."

"What for?" Flame asked somewhat annoyed. "What, you guys going to start planning more things to do together?"

Ember looked at Cynder. "Why do you need to talk to him privately? And why can't we be here?"

Cynder became annoyed and was about to let Flame and Ember hear a piece of mind, but Spyro interrupted her and got to his four feet, though his front left arm still felt numb.

"It's okay Flame and Ember. I have some question for Cynder that I think only she can answer."

"But Spyro…" Ember responded.

"It's okay, Ember" Spyro responded. "Now if you two don't mind."

"Whatever," Flame retorted, "come on Ember, let's leave Spyro and his girlfriend alone. I'm sure they just want some alone time to make out."

Ember looked at Flame concernedly as they both walked out. Though Ember was sure that Flame was only being sarcastic, she still was worried in the back of her mind that Flame was right.

"Alright Cynder, where is Crash and why doesn't anyone seem to know who he is?" Spyro questioned Cynder as soon as Flame and Ember left his room.

"Look, Crash was still concerned about the other Dragons trying to capture him. So when you two arrived in Artisans in the middle of the night, he brought you here and found me. He told me to tell you to meet him at the beach if you made it. As far as the rest of Artisans is concerned, I found you at the Artisans' portal and brought you here. You didn't have a pulse when Spark finally came to. I thought you had died." Cynder actually showed a little emotion and it could be heard in her speech. "But somehow Sparx brought you back, though he doesn't look so good himself." Sparx still rested on one of the support beams to Spyro's bed. He looked at Spyro with a tiny smile on his face.

"Crash is a hero, Cynder. He's saved my life twice in the past three days. He shouldn't have to hide from us." Spyro said somewhat angrily.

"Crash doesn't know if you're alive or not. I think you should go seem him when you're all better."

Cynder's comment calmed him down. "Alright, let's go."

"Are you sure, you still don't seem like you're a hundred percent."

"I'll manage. Come on Sparx."

Sparx flew from his resting spot and landed on Spyro's back. Spyro opened his window, and both he and Cynder flew out and made their way to the beach.

"Hey! Where are they going?" Ember shrieked once she saw Spyro and Cynder flying in the air.

"Probably to a secluded spot so they can have some alone time" Flame said to add to Ember's concern.

"Shut up, Flame!" She yelled back irately. "Should we follow them?"

"And have Cynder yell at me? Pass, though you can go spy on them if you want, make sure nothing serious happens between them."

Ember looked at the floor.

Crash sat alone on his beach lost in thought. All the alone time really reminded him that he was trapped in the past. For the first couple of hours after dropping Spyro off into Cynder's care, all he could think about was Spyro. He had flatlined when they had got to the portal. He carried him off the blimp and walked through the portal in Twilight Harbor (fortunately, no Gnorks had spotted or followed them. Crash had used his jeans to wrap Spyro's left arm to keep pressure on it and stop the blood loss (it wasn't the most sanitary option, but it was all he had) His jeans were drying on a branch after he had rinsed them in the ocean. Once he put his jeans back on, he thought back to the day Niko and Coco had given him this pair of jeans. From that point on, all he could think of was Budakan. After several hours of reminiscing, he grew hungry, so picked a few wumpa fruit from a nearby tree. It was a good thing this fruit existed even this far back in time, Crash wasn't sure what he would have eaten if it wasn't for this abundant fruit.

It was around half an hour from sunset when he heard flapping noises from a distance. Spyro he though. It took several hours, but Crash finally came to except that he was going to have to live out the rest of his life here in this time. Like Tawna, Coco, and Niko, loosing someone always made Crash consider just ending it. It was hard, he considered trying it again, but for a third time he was stopped, this time by Spyro. Crash wiped a tear from his eye and walked towards Spyro once he and Cynder landed on the beach.

Before Spyro could talk, Crash approached him and hugged him (or his neck, the positioning was a little weird). The gesture was a little awkward for Spyro. No one had ever "hugged" him before. But Spyro tried to return the gesture as best he could. Cynder looked in confusion, as well.

Crash let go and took a step back. "Glad to see you're alive Spyro. For a moment, I thought I lost the only friend I had left in the world" Crash said with his SAD.

What Crash said made Spyro think for a moment. Crash was from the future and had been abruptly brought here. He really was the only fiend he had. "Well, thank you for your help, Crash. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be alive."

Crash paused for an uncomfortable amount of time with a saddened look on his face. He finally broke the silence a minute later. "I think you have Sparx mostly to thank for that. Remember when I told you I don't like using my SAD. I may have only known you for three days Spyro, but I think you're the person I've spoken to the most." Crash turned and looked at the horizon. It was a beautiful day outside. "I told you about Tawna and Coco, right Spyro?"

Cynder looked at Spyro, and he responded after a couple of second. "Yeah, Tawna was your first love. She was pregnant with your unborn child before she died. And Coco was the 'human' who found you after she died." He only repeated what Crash had said to keep Cynder out of the dark.

"When Tawna died, it was the one of the most painful moments in my life. I buried… will bury her over there by that palm tree." Crash paused and pointed to a lone palm tree closest to the ocean. Spyro and Cynder looked over at where Spyro was pointed. They weren't sure where Crash was going with this story, but listened anyway. Crash breathed in deeply and sighed before he continued.

"I… was going to kill myself after she died. I… couldn't deal living after losing her. She meant everything to me, considering I was only five months old at the time. It was Coco that stopped me. Coco never found out, but when she found me on the beach on that rainy night that Tawna died, she had stopped me moments before I was going to do it." Spyro and Cynder could only listen in disbelief. Suicide… Cynder, who had kept herself distant from most people, began to feel sorry for this hero who had saved Spyro's life. She had thought of it a couple of times to herself, but she had never actually loved someone that much. And seeing someone who had lost someone that special to themselves was hard for her to listen to. Spyro was more aware of the tragedies in Crash's life, since Crash and told him of most of his life in the future when they both were in the Peace Keepers Realm. But this was the first time he had heard of this. He could only imagine what it was like to lose a child and your wife.

"Though I could never admit it until it was too late, I also loved Coco. And fate would have it that she again unknowingly stopped me from killing myself around a year later. You could say I have a problem, since I was considering doing it again before you arrived Spyro. I couldn't stand the thought of being alone again, since I've technically been alone all most of my life; the only mutant of my kind. If you died Spyro, I might have actually done it. And that scares me. So don't die Spyro… for me."

Spyro walked over to Crash, who was sitting on the shoreline. He sat next to him and put his hand on his shoulder, a gesture he learned from Crash. "I promise" Spyro said as Sparx landed on Crash's other shoulder. This "contact" stuff was a little new to Spyro, but it felt like the right thing to do at the time. Cynder joined them and also sat down at the beach. After about five minutes of silence, Cynder finally decided to talk.

"Crash, Spyro and I are going to explain to the Dragons tomorrow what you did for us and you will be free to live in Artisans if you want. You won't have to hide out here if you don't want to."

Crash looked over to his right at Spyro and Cynder. "Thanks Cynder, the decision's up to you, but it is okay with me the way things are right now. Spyro is the hero of the Dragon Realms, not me. I'm just glad he's alive."

Spyro was going to plead with Crash to reconsider, but after what Crash had just told him, he was only concerned about his wellbeing.

The best and worst moments really do happen on this beach for Crash.